AME BC Members Directory & Buyers Guide - The Association for ...

estaurants. An estimated 6,000 to 7,000
Chinese immigrants had come to B.C.”
Gold was changing the ethnic makeup
of the province.
We must mention the Douglas Trail,
built from Fort Douglas at the north
end of Harrison Lake to the Interior in
1859 at the command of Governor
Douglas. Three years later the Cariboo
Trail would stretch 650 kilometres
through the Fraser River Canyon from
Yale to Barkerville to provide a wagon
route to the Cariboo-region goldfields.
The Alexandra Bridge was built across
the Fraser – the first bridge across that
river. In 1865 the 720-kilometre
Dewdney Trail would open, again to
facilitate passage to and from the gold
fields. Now gold was changing the map.
And more: “The wagon road through
the [Fraser River] canyon,” Ramsey
wrote, “was to remain the sole economic
lifeline to the Interior until the Canadian
Pacific Railway was built. Even today it is
a crucial economic link for the province.
Once it was built the prices of all goods
dropped radically, and more importantly
it meant that now families with women
and children rode into the Cariboo to
Sluicing style: Piping
carrying a gravelwater-gold
mixture
between a hydraulic
mining catchment
area and sluice boxes
(far left); sluicing to
separate gold and
gravel (left).
Photographs: AME BC Archives SUMMER 2010 37